


kiss me in a field of fireflies and cloudy skies

by soundofez



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: (Nakatsukasa Tsubaki), (Wes Evans), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Dreamsharing, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Romantic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 09:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15215972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: Soulmate AU. Soul dreams of broken strings and softly glowing meadows and a pigtailed girl named Maka.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One more reverb fic for the season!
> 
> Shout-out to my brilliant artists [@mystery-shrouded](https://mystery-shrouded.tumblr.com) and [@arialis](https://arialis.tumblr.com) for the work they've done, and of course to [@reverbmod](https://reverbmod.tumblr.com/) for organizing the event.
> 
> Links: [[event tumblr](https://reverbmod.tumblr.com/)] [[mystery's post](http://mystery-shrouded.tumblr.com/post/175722899810/i-present-for-your-enjoyment-the-firefly-dreams)] [[arialis's post](http://arialis.tumblr.com/post/175722611374/heyooooo-time-for-reverb-2018-firefly-dreams-my)]

"Hi, Soul."

Soul whirls to face her, throwing his legs over the piano bench with boyish excitement. "Maka." He takes a longer look at her face. "You're tired."

Maka seats herself beside him. "First day in a new house," she sighs. "Tsubaki and Wes looked worn out, too."

"Wes?"

"My landlord," Maka explains. "I guess he wouldn't like to be called that, though. He only went through with the formalities because we insisted. It _is_ his summer home, though. I'd have felt bad if we didn't."

"How did you find him?" Soul asks.

"I wasn't there, but apparently Tsubaki just walked up to the door and knocked," Maka says, laughing a little. "She's from Japan, interning abroad for architecture here, and she says it's not the first time she's done it. Wes, though— he was expecting some neighbors. Instead, he got a stranger gushing over the architecture, asking for a tour around the house."

"He told me about that."

Maka looks at him. "He did?"

"He's my brother," Soul explains, and now that he says it, the resemblance is plain, so she brushes past the thought, and it's gone as quickly as it had come. "I thought he was gonna get robbed."

"You haven't met Tsubaki yet," she says wryly, casting memories of polite enthusiasm.

"Are they dating?" Soul asks.

"They're not being very discreet, but they haven't said anything yet," Maka says. "I'm pretty sure there's _something_ , though."

"You don't like it?"

Maka shakes her head. "It doesn't matter," she proclaims, and pokes his side. "Hey, play for me? I know you're working on something."

Soul squirms away from her. "I can't," he says, laughing. "Ack— _quit that_!" But he laughs as he fends off her fingers. "Maka, you know I can't perform."

Maka sticks her tongue out at him. "Why not? It's not like I know what I'm listening to."

"Such high praise," Soul says dryly.

"You're the only indie composer I like," Maka points out. "That's gotta count for something, _Soul Eater_. You're living up to your name."

Soul grins, his teeth sharp. "Always, angel."

* * *

Maka jerks into wakefulness around midnight, feeling off-balance. The rustle of her sheets is louder than it should be, and after several restless minutes, she sits up with a sigh. Maybe a cup of cocoa will help.

She's just set a pot of milk on the stove when she hears a faint rattling and freezes to listen. Moments later, the house trembles faintly with the opening of a door, and Maka snatches a cast-iron frying pan from its hook.

She ducks across the hall into the unlit bathroom, where she readies her makeshift weapon and plans her confrontation with the burglar. Just as she's about to check the hallway for signs of criminal life, though, the intruder appears, slouching into the kitchen. Maka jumps at the sight of him (she hadn't heard his footsteps)— raises her arms, preparing to swing— falters, confused, because she recognizes that white hair, doesn't she?

The intruder whirls around to face her, but he freezes when he sees her, too. Maka can't make out his features very well, especially with the backlight from the kitchen, but his eyes are wide and... and...?

"Who are you?"

His whisper seems to break a spell. He turns away, and the light from the kitchen behind him throws the silhouette of his face into sharp lines. Maka maps her landlord's features and slowly lowers the frying pan.

"I should be asking you that," Maka whispers back. "Are you related to Wes?"

The man shrugs. "He's my brother," he admits. "He— are you sure he didn't mention me? I told him I'd be here within the week."

Maka starts to reply, but she's interrupted by a sudden hiss. "The milk!" she cries softly, dashing into the kitchen.

He finds her at the stove, where she has exchanged her pan for the pot of milk, which has boiled over. "Oh, no," she sighs, placing the pot over an unlit burner and turning off the lit one.

"Sorry," the man says sheepishly.

Maka glances at him. "It's fine," she replies. "Hand me some towels? I need to clean this up."

"Sure." He reaches for the roll of paper towels beside the sink. "I, uh. Never caught your name."

Maka watches him rip paper towels from the roll. "Maka." He pauses. When he says nothing, she adds, "Nice to meet you, Martin."

He grimaces at the name. "Please, call me Soul," he tells her, handing over the paper towels.

"Soul? Like—" She catches herself. If he shares any of his brother's tastes, he won't like the indie music she listens to. "Nice to meet you, Soul." She nods at the pot of milk, still steaming. "Do you want some hot cocoa?"

* * *

Overhead, the trees groan and bow under the weight of the sky. The forest is so dark that Maka cannot see. Still, she knows the path.

Behind her, far away, a door slams. Maka keeps going. She doesn’t want to know what will be left when she goes back.

The path is blocked. She stops, her hands reaching, hesitant, knowing that if she touches the brambles in her way, they will prick and send her into a century-long sleep, but isn’t that for the better, anyway? It’s not like Papa will miss her now that Mama is gone.

Her arms bloom, the thorns drawing lines of blood, red and glowing. She falls to the earth and sleeps—

She pulls back her unbloodied arms, and almost immediately a boy stumbles out from the brambles and collapses against her, so that Maka has to clutch him to her chest to keep him from falling. He stares up at her, his eyes wide and wild, red and glowing. His face is flushed with heavy breaths. “They’re coming,” he whispers.

“Who?” But she knows the answer before he replies.

“ _The demons._ ”

She sets him on his feet. “Aren’t you a demon?” she asks, because he looks like one, with his eyes and his pointy teeth. Sure enough, she spies little jagged demon horns protruding from his scalp.

He backs away from her, and it is answer enough. “I never wanted to be one,” he says.

“You could be worse,” she says, thinking of her Papa. “Are you scared of the other demons?”

“They want—” _too much from me, too much_ **_for_ ** _me,_ he thinks, and he hates himself so much that Maka hugs him. Her warmth soaks into him, a comfort he has never known.

“I know a place,” Maka says, and she does. They step out from the shadows of the trees into a meadow, where wild grass brushes against their thighs and fireflies wink lazily in the half-light. She stops, her hands reaching, hesitant, hoping to hold these strange new creatures, knowing that if they like her, they might turn her into an angel and sweep her away from her new friend.

“They like you,” the boy says.

Maka turns to him and beams. “They do?”

He nods. “Who are you?” he asks.

“I’m Maka,” she says. “What’s your name?”

The fireflies whisper _Martin_. He tells her, “Soul.”

Maka nods. “Like souls that you eat? Is that what your name is from?”

He crosses his arms. “I don’t _eat souls_.”

“Whatever you say, _soul-eater_.” She sticks out her hand, cutting off a complaint. “Nice to meet you, Soul.”

He takes her hand. “The pleasure is mine, Maka,” he says.

Maka wrinkles her nose. He sounds too _formal_ , she thinks. “... Don't eat my soul.”

“ _I don't eat souls!_ ” the boy protests.

Maka giggles. “Fine. Soul.” She pats his head. “You don’t have to be a demon if you don’t want to be,” she says. “Look, your horns are gone.”

He reaches up to pat at his hair, too. “They are!” he echoes. Then, looking around at the fireflies, he says, “They like you, you know. You don’t have to stay here. You can be an angel, easy.”

Maka looks around at the fireflies, and then back at Soul. “No,” she decides, “I want to stay.”


	2. Chapter 2

Soul stares down at piano keys and fights the panic welling up inside him.

How could he have forgotten that the performance was today? At least he’s wearing a suit. His hair is untidy, though— he cringes at what his mother must think of it.

He needs to play the program, but the keys are strange and unfamiliar— a special piano, Soul thinks, annoyed, one that its maker is showing off. It’s supposed to be better, but its not even safe to play, he knows, gingerly testing a key. It twangs violently. A broken string lashes against his cheek.

The harsh note fades into silence. Soul lifts his eyes to look over the concert hall and sighs in relief at the sight that greets him— this isn’t a concert, he realizes as he looks out over empty seats, this is a rehearsal. He’s dressed up for nothing.

He stands. The piano bench squeals as its feet drag across the pristine wood flooring, _just like a fart_ , Wes once said, and Soul smiles at the memory.

He steps out of the hall, directly into a meadow surrounded by trees. Soul doesn’t need to look to know that the building he is leaving is an old one, its ancient stone façade overgrown with vines. Fireflies wink in the wild grass, which brushes against Soul’s calves. He extends an open palm and smiles at the tiny glow that settles in his hand.

“It’s you.”

He turns, and just like he expected, she is standing there.

“Hi, Maka,” he says.

“Soul.”

His smile wavers. “What’s wrong?”

 _This isn’t real_. Shame and disgust mix in her thoughts to form self-loathing, so familiar to Soul but so foreign in Maka.

“So what if it isn’t real?” he asks— but she’s right, of course. He’s dreaming.

Even so, he loves her.

“You don’t even know who I am,” Maka says, and a frost touches the twilight air. The lights around them falter at the chill.

“So show me,” Soul replies, earnestly, desperately. “You’re the same Maka who stayed, aren’t you? You’re still Angel. That’s enough for me.”

“ _You’re_ not real,” Maka says. “The demon Soul Eater, the real Martin Solomon Evans— you’re not the same person.”

“I’ve made it that way,” Soul says. “Would you rather we be the same?”

Maka shakes her head, not to answer the question. “You don’t know who I am,” she repeats, and now she is sad, wondering endlessly at the impossibility of loving and dreaming.

“So _show me_ ,” he repeats. He extends an open palm, where a firefly still glows.

She regards him intensely, this strange, other Maka, searching for something in his voice or his mind. After a moment (after a lifetime), she draws closer and takes his hand. “Okay,” she says.

* * *

Soul clings to phantom dreams even as he flails one arm toward his bedside table. “ _I know it's you,_ ” he hums, and follows the string of notes that flickers to mind, looping back when they run out, repeating the melody.

His fingers scrabble against smooth glass and polished metal. Soul loses his phone several times before he finds the voice memo app and hits record. He hums the melody twice more before ending the recording and dropping his face back into his pillows, just in time for someone to knock on his door.

“Good morning, little brother!” Wes calls. “I know you're awake, I _heard_ you humming in there. Breakfast is in ten or it's going in the garbage and you can fend for yourself.”

“You suck,” Soul groans into his pillow.

“Enjoy your garbage breakfast!”

“I'm _getting up_!”

Fifteen minutes later, teeth brushed and face washed and hair finger-combed into an acceptable level of fluff, Soul slouches into the kitchen and pauses to take stock of company.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Wes tells him. “I was going to bin your portion, but these two stopped me.”

The woman beside him, a willowy stranger with long black hair, speaks up. “It’s not good to waste food.” Her tone is as teasing as it is scolding.

“That’s not what you said before,” Wes says. “Weren’t you going to eat his portion if he didn’t show?”

The woman’s placid smile widens. “But I couldn’t _possibly_ finish all of that,” she sighs, in a way that leaves Soul pretty sure that she easily could. “He’s your brother, isn’t he?” she says. “You should take responsibility.”

“I was going to, but you stopped me,” Wes points out.

Soul sits across from his brother, next to the woman he’d met last night. “There’s _something_ , all right,” he murmurs, half a second before he remembers that they hadn’t talked about Wes or the other woman last night.

“Right?” she murmurs back. His déjà vu intensifies.

Then, as if registering the comment, she gives him an odd look.

Soul looks away and starts on his breakfast, an omelet of sausage and ham and cheese and, ugh, mushrooms. He hopes that the tingling in his face is less visible than it feels.

Wes clears his throat. “This is my brother, Martin Solomon,” he tells the woman he’s been bantering with. “Soul, these two are Tsubaki—” (Soul wonders why the name is so familiar)— “and Maka. You two met last night, didn’t you?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Maka says wryly. Soul swallows a mouthful of egg and meets her glance. He tries not to look away too quickly or stare too long. “I almost brained your brother with a frying pan, Gerard.” Her brow furrows again, that same odd look she’d had earlier. “I mean— _Wes_. I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.” She blushes. Soul rips his eyes away from her, afraid that he might stare.

“No, you’re right,” Wes says. “That is my first name.” Soul holds back a laugh, but a smug smile creeps over his lips.

Maka sighs. “I must have seen it when we were signing for rent,” she says. “Sorry, Wes, I don’t know what happened.”

“Maybe it’s karma,” Soul says. “Neither of us like our full names very much.”

“Really? But they’re so elegant,” Tsubaki says.

Wes wrinkles his nose. “Do I look like a _Gerard_ , though?” he asks, curling his mouth around the ‘R’s with distaste.

Tsubaki and Maka consider him in silence.

“He could be a pirate if he had an eyepatch,” Soul suggests. His grin widens.

“I’m sure _Marr_ -tin would make a better pirate than me,” Wes retorts, earning a grimace.

“Maybe with more facial hair,” Maka says thoughtfully, still looking at Wes.

Tsubaki claps. “He could be a butler,” she says.

“I can see it,” Soul says.

“Mother would have a conniption,” Wes says wryly.

“All the more reason.”

Wes stands, gathering his plate. “Soul, you done?”

Soul swallows a last mouthful and rises as well. “Yeah. I’ll do the dishes.” To the women, “Are you guys done?”

Maka and Tsubaki both hand him empty plates. “Thanks,” Maka says, and Soul can’t quite keep his confusion off his face when he looks at her. Had he been too tired to read her tone last night, or has something changed since she offered him hot cocoa?

He retreats to the sink with the dishes and lets the sound of rushing water and his own humming drown out the conversation at the table.

“Soul will be with me,” Wes says as Soul shuts off the tap. “Unless you’re too jet lagged?” he calls.

“Never too jet lagged for music,” Soul replies, wiping down the sink. “We have a keyboard, right?”

“Don’t forget whose house this is. I mic’d up the grand.”

“ _Sweet_.”

* * *

“You’re distracted.”

Soul glances at his brother. “What?”

Wes elbows him. “Stop playing, Soul.”

He pulls his hands from the keyboard regretfully. “What’s up?”

Wes leans over with his bow hand and taps the string of notes that keeps creeping into Soul’s melody. “The melody you keep going back to— you aren’t structuring it for a duet. Also, it’s not my style. Not that it’s bad,” Wes adds hastily when Soul scowls. “Just… you don’t want to play with me. Not right now.”

Soul nudges Wes’s hand off of the keys. “I know.”

Wes elbows him again. “Thought you said you’d never write a song you didn’t want to write.”

“I did.”

“So what are you working on?”

Soul flaps a hand at his brother. “You can find out with everyone else.”

Wes groans theatrically. “Come _onnnn_.”

“You’ll give me more shit because you’re my brother,” Soul points out. “I don’t perform, Wes. Not for anyone, not even for M—”

Wes grins into the abrupt silence. “Not even for who, now?”

Soul shakes his head. “Nobody,” he says quietly.

“That’s not what I heard,” Wes sing-songs.

“She’s not real.”

Wes closes his mouth. Then, carefully, “I thought you stopped dreaming of her.”

Soul shrugs. His stomach growls. “Let’s get some food, call it a day,” he says, standing. “I’ll get this earworm out of my head tonight and we can work on the duet tomorrow.”

“All right.”

* * *

After lunch, Soul retreats to his room, where he sets up his travel studio— laptop, mic, midi keyboard, headphones. He hooks up his phone, too, and waits impatiently for his files to transfer.

The recording from the morning is muddy and unpolished enough that Soul grimaces. He buckles down and gets to work.

He doesn’t hear the knock or the door opening. It’s a tap on his shoulder that finally gets his attention, at the cost of toppling him and his chair over backwards. The motion wrenches his headphones off of his ears, and it takes him a moment to gather his wits. “Who— M-Maka!”

She had caught him mid-fall, hugging his torso to her chest. “Sorry,” she says sheepishly, tugging him out of the chair as his feet scrabble for carpet. “Uh— Wes asked me to fetch you for dinner.” She shifts suddenly, and Soul throws his arms around her neck when he feels his feet leave the ground. “Well, Tsubaki did,” she continues, “after Wes said you were probably, quote, ‘waist-deep and head-first in a project.’” She tips his feet toward the floor, safely out of her bridal carry. “Sorry.”

“You’re strong,” Soul says stupidly, his mind still whirling from her scent (faintly musky under a fruity shampoo).

Maka grins. “Yup.”

He wonders if he’s going to die of heart failure soon. “Thanks,” he says faintly, kneeling to pick up his chair. “Um. Dinner?”

She retreats back to his door. “Yeah.” She glances at his desk. “What were you working on?” she asks, and Soul can’t help but feel flattered at her curiosity.

“Just a demo,” he tells her, following her out of his room. “It was stuck in my head all morning, so I split from Wes to get it out of my head. I’ll probably release it tonight.”

“Can I listen to it?”

Soul looks at her, startled. “I-it won’t be that good,” he stammers. “It was just a whim.” _Even if the boards will freak over the tenor_ , he thinks wryly.

Maka turns away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No— I can show you. If you really want to hear it. After it’s done, I mean.”

She looks back at him. “That would be nice,” she says quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

They walk slowly through the boundless meadow. The endless twilight around them is saturated with glowing warmth that soaks into their skin like an embrace.

“I talk to my Papa more than to my Mama, now,” Maka says. “He’s around, and she… isn’t.” But in spite of the heaviness in her voice (or perhaps because of it), Soul knows that her mother isn’t dead.

He can’t fathom Maka’s grief or her mother’s abandonment— he’s not fond of his own mother, nor can he imagine her leaving him alone.

“Papa’s like that, a little bit,” Maka says wryly. “He doesn’t give up.”

“I still don’t like talking to my mother, though,” Soul points out.

Maka shrugs. “They’re different people. _We’re_ different, too.” She pauses. “Was she the one who…”

“They both did,” Soul says. “Wes is… you and Wes are the only reasons why I stayed in love with music, probably.”

“Wes?”

“My brother.”

“Oh! Right, of course.”

Soul bares his teeth in a grin. “Full name Gerard Wesley Evans,” he adds, with the slightest hint of smugness, because Wes hates his first name just as much as Soul does.

Maka giggles. “I’ve heard him practice,” she says. Then, out of nowhere, “Soul… are you still _Soul_?”

As if in answer, a grand piano lumbers into view like a friendly beast, its bench trotting along at its side. Soul smiles fondly, running his fingers over the closed fallboard as he passes, but Maka seats herself on the bench and looks up at him eagerly. “Play for me?”

He stares down at her. “I can’t.” He will never perform, he thinks. That time in his life is over.

“I won’t look.” Even as she says it, she looks like she realizes the childishness of the offer. “I mean—”

Soul laughs. “No, it’s okay,” he says, his heart swelling with emotion. It’s only fair to share this with her, he decides. Hasn’t he known her long enough?

He sits, and she presses her back against his, looking away just as she promised. Soul’s hands hover over ivory keys for a ghost of a moment before he starts playing.

 _Demon_ , she thinks, and behind the word is a current of awe and affection that washes over Soul like a bursting tide.

Thundering, discordant chords fall away under a glowing note, quiet but insisting. Words leap to Soul’s throat, unbidden. _“It’s you,”_ he sings, drawing out the notes, and Maka gasps, a perfect hi-hat of recognition.

His hands dance over the keyboard, trilling out a rhythm like crickets chirping in twilight. _“Angel, fall for me.”_ He drops from falsetto to a rougher, homelier tenor, one that no one outside of his family’s circle has ever known. _“Long ago, a child fell asleep for centuries. Long ago, a child ran to trees he’d never seen. One was given shelter. One was given light. You were blessed by angels and chosen by fireflies._

 _“I know,”_ he sings, tilting his head toward her. Maka meets his gaze. _“Angel,”_ he sings, _“let me be your demon. Broken strings and terror dreams don’t fit our tangled realities. Here where truths are far away, the lies are too close to see, so be with me._

_“Angel, let me be your demon and fall—”_

He stops abruptly, leaving a final string of notes hammered sharply into the air.

The meadow twists into nothingness.

* * *

Maka sits bolt upright, pulled from dreamless sleep by a familiar voice screaming from a phone speaker.

**“Pick up the phooooooooone-nuhhh—”**

She presses the lock button on her phone to mute it and tries to decide if she wants to deal with her best friend at… four in the morning.

The call drops. Maka stares expectantly at the screen, and sure enough, the voice blares out again. **“Makaaaaa, pick up the phooooo—”**

She answers that call. “It’s 4 AM,” she says dully.

“SOUL EATER just dropped a demo,” Black Star replies. “ _With tenor._ ”

Maka scrambles for her laptop. “No one and nothing will save you if you’re lying,” she warns. “He _never_ sings tenor.” Still, a tender suspicion blooms in her gut, quickening her breath.

“Would I lie about this?”

Maka pulls her phone from her face to double-check the date, even though she knows April is most of a year away. “No,” she admits.

“Hurry up and listen to it,” he demands.

“I’m hurrying!” she hisses. “My laptop is slow! You know this!”

“Then use your phone!”

“I’m talking to _you_ , dingus!”

“Call me back!”

The call disconnects with a string of beeps. Maka unlocks her phone and finds ten texts’ worth of Black Star freaking out. One of them has a link, so Maka follows it.

Ten minutes later, Black Star calls back. “You were supposed to call me,” he grumbles.

Maka can’t find the words to answer.

“Maka?”

“Star, it’s for _me_.”

“What?”

She wants to listen to it and _never stop_. “I’ll call you back,” she says, hanging up on him.

Her laptop has finally booted up. **“Makaa—”** her phone starts, and Maka impatiently mashes the lock button and mutes the device with extreme prejudice, leaving it face down on the desk.

It takes her another minute to pull up the song on her laptop. _“It’s you,”_ she whispers.

He’s still awake, Maka realizes. Hadn’t he said he’d release it tonight? She stumbles out of her room and toward his, only barely stopping herself from throwing his door open and tackling him.

Her heart is still racing. Was she imagining it? Was it pure chance? Is she just _clairvoyant_ concerning all matters SOUL EATER? But the song description— _To my dream girl_ — that has to be Maka, right?

She knocks.

Seconds tick by in agonizing silence. Every beat of her heart drops pebbles of doubt into her gut, crushing the butterflies that linger there. She knocks again, more timidly. Was she wrong? Is he asleep, after all?

She’s turning away when the door finally opens. “Maka?”

She turns back, only to be confronted with a very tired, very bare-chested Soul. “Y-you’re SOUL EATER,” she stutters, trying not to think about how his wet hair clings to his scalp, or how low his towel hangs around his waist.

His eyes widen. “Um. Yeah. That’s me.” He looks down at himself. “D-do you mind if I—”

“You’re my _demon_.” She blushes. “I-I mean— y-you’re— _it’s you_. You’re _real_.”

Soul lifts a hand to hide his mouth, bony knuckles mashing against the base of his nose. “Angel?” he asks.

She shakes her head, not to say no, not to answer the question. “You _performed for me_ ,” she blurts. “I recognized the falsetto, but— _tenor_?”

“The comments are freaking out,” Soul agrees, laughing through his hand. “You— I can’t believe you’re a _fan_. I-in real life, I mean.”

“In real life,” Maka agrees.

“I love you.”

Maka blinks. “Y-yes. I know.”

Soul drops his hand, revealing the widest smile she’s ever seen. His teeth are perfectly regular, Maka notices. She almost reaches up to feel them.

“You’re _real_ ,” he says. “Maka Albarn.”

Her name in his voice sends tingles down her spine. “ _You’re_ real. Soul Eater.” She smiles back at him, wider than she ever has, her cheeks stretching almost painfully. “Ate _my_ soul.”

“Do you want it back?”

“No.” She chews on her lower lip for a beat before she steps closer to him, unable to resist the desire to be closer to him. He inhales a little, a soft whispering breath, and his bare chest expands almost enough to touch her pajama shirt. She reaches up to press her fingers against the shadows under his eyes. “You should sleep.”

He catches her fingers. “You, too. Why are you up—? No, never mind, I’ll find out.” But instead of backing away, he lifts his spare hand and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Cool fingers brush against skin, and she shivers pleasantly.

“Can I—?” she starts, at the same time he asks, “Do you—?” They stop at the same time, and laugh together, too.

“Wes would never stop making fun of you,” Maka giggles.

“Tsubaki would want all of the details,” Soul agrees.

“Do you want to deal with that tomorrow morning?”

“ _This_ morning. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth it, honestly.”

“You’re pretty tired.” Maka sighs and pulls away, her hand falling reluctantly from his face. His hand follows. “I should go.”

The fingers cradling her head curl gently when she steps away from him, letting her hair slip through them like a stream. “Okay,” he says softly, lowering his hand. “Good night, Maka.”

He loves her _so much_. On a whim, Maka steps forward and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth before backing away again. His hand jerks up to his face, and his eyes are wide and _wild_.

“Good night, Soul,” Maka tells him, and slip away to her room, her heart drumming in her throat.

He loves her. _He loves her._ Maka presses her knuckles to her lips as she closes her door and leans back against it. _He’s real. He loves her, and she loves him, and he’s real._

Her eyes fall on her bed. _He’ll be there,_ she thinks. She can barely believe it. Can she even fall asleep like this, when she’s so excited?

Only one way to find out. She sprawls out between her covers and whispers to herself, “Sweet dreams,” and drifts off to meet him there.

**Author's Note:**

> Once more, with feeling, to the wonderful [@mystery-shrouded](https://mystery-shrouded.tumblr.com) and [@arialis](https://arialis.tumblr.com) for their art! Happy Reverb 2018, all!
> 
> Links: [[event tumblr](https://reverbmod.tumblr.com/)] [[mystery's post](http://mystery-shrouded.tumblr.com/post/175722899810/i-present-for-your-enjoyment-the-firefly-dreams)] [[arialis's post](http://arialis.tumblr.com/post/175722611374/heyooooo-time-for-reverb-2018-firefly-dreams-my)]


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